A rather scrappy mix between 'The Name of the Rose' and 'Dragon's Lair'...
Now, if you consider a game taking a litterary giant as a role-model, the least you can expect is a decent plot, right? Well, Murder in the Abbey delivers just that. What's the problem, though? It's that at times it feels like every in-game dialogue, every bit of investigation you make, is just a toned down interpretation of Eco's classic (after all, the book is anything but an easy read), a means to get a richly crafted work into a wider crowd (despite many differences, after all I doubt the guys at Alcachofa Soft are looking for a law-suit). The story, instead of leading you through your own logical progression, pretty much presents every solution to every problem once a puzzle or an inventory-based challenge is overcome, so the few enough puzzles usually 'jump the gun' and tell you the logical conclusion before you arrived at it with your own mind. Such conclusions, bear in mind, are often the level of Holmes' observation-based deductions, you know, the old 'I know what you did your entire life because of the dust on your shoes' type of comment. You feel more as an spectator than an actual character, intervening in timely moments to solve a few riddles or puzzles. Most inventory-based aspect are trial-and-error, which pretty much means: try every combination, even if it takes you an hour just to open a doorway.
In a final comment about the plot, leading also to voice acting: the character Bruno isn't even worthy of the title 'based on Adso of Melk'. The donkey he rides on appears to have more brain cells than him, and more often than not he is only there to complicate the life of his master, Leonardo. That, added to some of the most irritating voice actings I've ever come across in an adventure game, to the point it's clear that this is nothing but a single adult man trying really hard to make his voice seem fragile and child-like, makes him a character that does little else than annoy you for 90% of the game, and more than that actually, but let's not ruin the experience.
The voice acting is... different. While many of the characters' speeches will sell perfectly, such as Leonardo's, many of them will sound strange, to the point you're almost certain half the characters are voiced by a single individual, trying his best to stretch his voice in as many different ways as possible. Combined with a distinctively lack of emotion in some of the characters, particularly during moments of bigger 'tension', it fails to trully immerse you in a sinister plot.
Another contributing factor to such lack of an actual game 'feeling', is the stylized graphics, which immediately reminded me of good ol' Dragon's Lair. While many will praise them, myself included, for their originality, they don't fit well into the sinister plot. While the characters are trully diversified and richly crafted, almost every single one of them seems too 'friendly', to the point that when Leonardo is interrogating them you can't shake the feeling that the guy is pestering with a bunch of old men.
With such comments, you can expect me to give this game a 2.0 score or something, right? Well, it's actually deserving of a 6.0, for the sheer fact that if you don't mind simply observing endless bits of conversation, after all, the game's main premise is about interrogating suspects, you will get enough satisfaction to keep you firmly on your seat, albeit never at its edge. The script is beautifully written, again noting that if fails to fit into the cartoon-esque graphs, but enthralling enough to keep you interested. My guess is that if you haven't read 'The Name of the Rose' you'll enjoy this game a lot more than I did. For me, it was a bit of a let-down that it took so much from such a classic book but failed to actually take a step further, such as less 'pretty, charismatic characters' and more 'witty, intelligent' individuals who'll aswer you with more than nervous stutters.
The evil storyline falls short on its execution.